Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to optical transport networks and, more particularly, to virtual optical network service with guaranteed availability.
Description of the Related Art
Telecommunication, cable television and data communication systems use optical networks to rapidly convey large amounts of information between remote points. In an optical network, information is conveyed in the form of optical signals through optical fibers, also referred to as a lightpath.
One type of service offered with optical networks is optical network virtualization, which may enable network service providers to provision multiple coexisting and isolated virtual optical networks (VONs) over the same physical infrastructure. For example, in conventional optical networks, network services are provided in terms of lightpaths (i.e., optical network paths between given endpoints). Thus, optical network services may be provided in terms of VONs to a customer. When provisioning VONs in response to a request, different mapping patterns for mapping virtual nodes to a physical topology may be possible. Each mapping of a virtual node in a VON to physical node may be associated with a quality of service metric of the links between the nodes. The use of certain quality of service metrics may result in poor spectral efficiency and may not provide meaningful advantages in terms of network reliability.